PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — There was an early omen that this year’s Players Championship, a signature event of the PGA Tour, would radically defy golf tournament convention. It arrived before the sun rose for Thursday’s first round in the form of an ominous-sounding weather delay, delivered as the golfers slept.
In the end, most of them probably felt like they never woke up, as the ensuing five days of golf unfolded like a vengeful nightmare.
“It was brutal out there,” Rory McIlroy, the four-time major winner, said of conditions that included 40 mile-an-hour winds, more than four inches of dousing rain, tornado warnings and temperatures that occasionally dipped to the mid-30s. As he spoke, McIlroy’s eyes almost appeared glassy. His face was wind burned, and his trousers were sullied by mud.
Not long after McIlroy retreated to the clubhouse, the agreeable tour veteran Kevin Kisner described his tournament journey in spiritual terms: “It was just hit and pray.”